Part 2 Chapter 31: Crooked Teeth
Thinking of this, I couldn't stay any longer and hurried to confirm with Qin Yiheng.
He kept staring at the thing on the top of the umbrella. I tapped him and he came back to his senses. After listening to what I said, he chuckled and told me, "Using an umbrella indoors won't attract ghosts. But there are many folk sayings that if a child uses an umbrella indoors, he won't grow taller; if a woman uses an umbrella indoors, the house will leak; and if a man uses an umbrella indoors, he will go bald."
Of course, these are just some folk sayings. No one can verify whether there will be such consequences. However, based on his experience, it cannot be taken seriously. There is no necessary connection between the so-called indoor umbrella attracting ghosts. This saying comes from the fact that ghosts usually like corners or shady places. In addition, when people hold umbrellas indoors, the yang energy of the people under the umbrella will be blocked. If there happens to be a ghost in the house, it is usually a lonely ghost passing by. When people themselves are physically weak or their yang energy is not strong, they are prone to seeing filth, so there is such a misunderstanding among the people.
This umbrella has been a very yin object since ancient times. In many places, there is a custom that umbrellas cannot be kept at home for a year. They must be taken out to dry on a sunny day in the middle of the year. This is to prevent any filth from hiding in the umbrella and causing trouble to the family after a long time. This is called "drying basket" in the art of divination. Simply put, it means taking out the things in the house that have not seen the sun for many years, such as umbrellas, to dry them. In the past, when the deceased was buried in some places, even if it did not rain, a relative of the deceased would be specially selected to hold a black umbrella at the head of the body on the coffin, and accompany the funeral procession to the burial place. It is said that this is to help the deceased block the sunlight, so that the soul of the deceased can not be blinded and take a good look at the world. Because the bodies buried in the coffins are all lying down, with their eyes facing the sun. After the implementation of cremation, this gradually had no chance to be used, and now few people know about it.
Although Qin Yiheng spoke clearly, I still felt confused after listening to him. What does this umbrella mean? I asked again, and he waved his hand and reached out to touch the top of the umbrella. He held the umbrella very low, so I couldn't see what he wanted to touch, but I could guess that he was trying to remove the thing stuck inside the umbrella.
Sure enough, after fiddling with it for a few times, he took it out and looked at it in his hand. I looked down and saw that it was indeed a piece of adhesive tape, but there was something stuck on the other side of the adhesive tape. When I looked closely, I shuddered. It turned out to be a human back tooth, which was obviously glued to the umbrella by someone with adhesive tape.
What does this mean? This tooth is obviously an adult tooth, not a baby tooth. Even if it is a baby tooth, I have heard of throwing the lower baby teeth up high and burying the upper teeth. It is said that after doing this, the child will not grow buck teeth. I have never heard of gluing teeth to umbrellas!
I reached out and peeled off the adhesive plaster inside my umbrella. Behind this piece of plaster was also a molar. I looked at Qin Yiheng, who was also wondering about the tooth. After a while, he suddenly said "Ah" and shouted, "Look! Look quickly! There are tooth marks in this house!"
His shout startled me. At first I didn't hear clearly, and thought something had come into the room, so I turned around and looked around, but didn't see anything. I turned around and saw Qin Yiheng was already walking around the room quickly, leaning down every few steps, as if he was looking for something.
I followed him and found that he was checking the furniture in the house. He looked very carefully, not missing any corners of each piece. After looking at one, he quickly went to look at another one, as if he was in a hurry.
I asked him what he was doing, and he pointed to the furniture on the other side of the room and told me to check it out. " If you find any unusual bumps on the furniture, especially teeth marks, tell me immediately."
I was quite helpless. Could it be that there were mice in this room, and they would chew the furniture? Was it necessary to be so nervous? Or were the teeth marks he found human? This wasn't a mental hospital. Who would grind their teeth on furniture for no reason? I wanted to ask more clearly, but Qin Yiheng kept urging me. I had no choice but to bend down like him and start looking at each piece of furniture.
These furnitures didn't look very old, maybe they were well maintained. Anyway, I didn't study antique wooden furniture, so I couldn't tell whether they were good or bad. There were some small scratches on them, but they were not obvious. I reported them to Qin Yiheng one by one. He came over and took a look, shook his head and told me to keep looking.
The two of us searched for more than ten minutes. I was exhausted, not because of looking at the furniture, but because my arm was numb from holding the umbrella . We searched all the furniture in the living room, but we couldn't find any tooth marks. Qin Yiheng was unwilling to give up, and said that we should search in other rooms separately, and then he went into another room.
To be honest, I still feel a little unsure if I were to search by myself. The house is evil to begin with, and with such a large area, if something happens, there is no time to take care of each other. I chose the room next to Qin Yiheng's to check. This house is not big, and judging from the furnishings, it should be a teahouse, which is indeed in line with the old man's hobby. I searched around, and there were not many pieces of furniture in the house, so it was easy to look around. I didn't find any tooth marks, and I didn't even find any signs of bumps.
Just as I was about to go to another room, I heard Qin Yiheng coughing a few times. There were only two of us in the house, and it was late at night, so his coughs sounded particularly loud. I wanted to ask him a question, but before I could open my mouth, I heard him say "ah", as if he was quite surprised, and then there was no movement.
I pricked up my ears and listened for a few seconds, but there was no sound from his end. I stood there, feeling conflicted, worried that something might happen to him, but also worried that if I rushed over blindly, we would both be in trouble, so I called out his name, but he didn't respond, but I heard something like the tip of his shoe tapping on the floor in response.
I felt uneasy when I heard his response. Although lifting his foot was a small action, it was not difficult to open his mouth. Could it be that he encountered something that prevented him from speaking?
I suddenly realized that the noise he made just now was probably not the tip of his shoes hitting the floor.
This time when we went out, he was wearing a pair of New Balance running shoes. I also have a few pairs of those shoes. The soles are very soft. Although they make noises when they hit the floor, they are not as loud as before. I understand. It seems that the tip of the umbrella poked the floor. Damn, didn't the man tell me to hold an umbrella in the house? Did Qin Yiheng put away the umbrella?
I couldn't wait any longer, so I ran to the door of his room and saw him standing against the wall, looking at something. Then I felt relieved and went in to see what he was doing.
Qin Yiheng's umbrella had been put away and placed beside him. I saw that he was absorbed in reading, so I didn't take a photo of him. I stood behind him and read with him. This room should have been a study room before. One wall of the room was made of bookshelves that were directly pulled out of the wall, but there was no book on the bookshelf, and it was covered with dust.
Qin Yiheng probably coughed because he blew dust through his mouth when he was checking just now and was choked.
I searched with my eyes, but didn't see anything. Seeing that he had put away his umbrella, I thought there was no danger, so I put down my umbrella, lit a cigarette, and asked him if he had found the tooth marks.
He turned around, said "hmm", pointed at the bookcase, moved aside and told me to go and see for myself. I looked over and still didn't see any tooth marks, but the dust where he pointed was cleared, and it looked like he had just written something on the dust with his finger.
I got closer and saw that it was four traditional Chinese characters, which read "万民一户", which sounded a bit like a Japanese name. I was very curious and asked him what it meant.
Qin Yiheng shook his head, lit a cigarette, and said, "I didn't write these words. I just traced them with my finger. These marks were originally on the bookshelf. It seems that something was placed here before, and it was taken away after a long time. Therefore, the dust here is lighter than other places."
I tried to imagine what this thing was, and I guessed it should be a decorative object carved from calligraphy, and it shouldn't be worth much. Otherwise, it wouldn't be left here, waiting for dust to settle around it before someone remembered to take it away.
I asked Qin Yiheng, why he was looking for the teeth marks just now, but now he can't get along with this thing, where are the teeth marks?
He said, "There's something wrong with this thing." Then he asked me to stretch out my hand and wrote a word on my palm. He wrote this word very slowly, and since I was watching, it was easy to tell that he wrote the word "房". After writing the word, he asked me if I had figured out anything.
I thought about it for a few seconds before I suddenly realized that "万民一户" (ten thousand people, one household) is just a word for "房" (house). So these four words are not a Japanese name, but a riddle? What is the special meaning of this?
I took a puff of cigarette and asked Qin Yiheng what this meant. If we interpret it literally, is the old man in the hat a house slave? Is he using this thing to remind himself to pay his mortgage or something? Or does this thing have another meaning? The word "house" can't be referring to the "house" worth a million dollars, right?
Qin Yiheng looked at the bookshelf thoughtfully, took out his mobile phone and took a picture of the words, then shook his head at me, walked to the door of the study, reached out and touched the edge of the door frame a few times, as if picking up something from the ground, walked back and spread out his palm for me to see.
There were two teeth in his palm, but unlike the ones found on the umbrella before, these two were front teeth. They were probably quite old. The color of the teeth was very dark, and it was not known whether it was due to oxidation or because the owner of the teeth did not like to brush his teeth before.
I didn't dare to take it with my hands. Even if it wasn't evil, it looked a bit disgusting. I asked him directly: "Did you find this thing on the door frame?"
Qin Yiheng nodded and told me: "This is called 'crooked teeth'. The so-called crooked teeth literally means that the teeth are uneven and crooked, but it also contains a layer of promiscuous meaning. In metaphysics, there are two types of crooked teeth. One type grows on women. According to legend, in the old days, after the death of some unfaithful women, their teeth would be pulled out and tied with strings to be hung on the archway of the old street. It is said that doing so can prevent the same unfaithful people from appearing in the family's descendants. Because of gravity, no matter how much the teeth hanging on the archway swing, they will eventually go vertically downwards, which also means 'going straight down'."
"Moreover, some secret techniques of the boudoir also record that if you hide this kind of tooth under the dining table at home, and eat with the man you want to seduce, your wish will come true. In many brothels in ancient times, in order to attract more business, prostitutes would generally hide a tooth in their rooms. This tooth is most likely left by prostitutes in the brothel. Generally, before a prostitute dies, she will give the tooth as a unique gift to others, which shows that the tooth had a high status in the hearts of prostitutes at that time."
"However, no one can say for sure whether these crooked teeth are useful or not, because I have already invited her to the boudoir for dinner, and whether she goes to bed or not probably has little to do with her crooked teeth."
Qin Yiheng paused here, put out his cigarette, and continued:
"The second type of crooked teeth is found on men. This type of crooked teeth is not caused by adultery, but by rebellion. According to legend, this type of crooked teeth can only be found in the mouths of generals who rebelled. The number of rebels varies, and even in large numbers, there are only a few generals, so this type of crooked teeth is usually difficult to find. After the rebellion was suppressed, these generals were not only tortured to death, but their teeth were also pulled out one by one. Except for the front teeth, which were hidden on the gates of the capital, the remaining teeth were sent to military strongholds across the country by postmen and buried in the city. However, few people know where they were buried. The reason for burying the crooked teeth is similar to that of women, which is to prevent such things from happening again in the future. This is no longer a part of metaphysics, but a complete superstition. It can only be used as a psychological comfort, otherwise there would not be so many changes in dynasties in China."
When he said this, I started to get confused. What does this have to do with this house? So I interrupted and asked. Qin Yiheng laughed and squeezed me twice to tell me that I was not smart enough. He told me that these crooked teeth were probably not from the mouth of the so-called rebel general, but from the mouth of a person who betrayed the old man in the hat! The old man should know that this kind of game is useless, so his purpose is obvious, which is to kill the chicken to scare the monkey.
Qin Yiheng glanced outside the door, as if he was worried about something, and lowered his voice, saying that those umbrellas, he might understand what they mean, that is, they are used to block light, but the purpose of blocking light is not because of fear of light, but to hide the shadow! Some people who come to this house have no shadow!
